Optical transport networking (OTN) is an industry standard for efficient transmission of data over different light paths. OTN operates primarily at the OSI physical layer. It provides a mechanism for circuits to be multiplexed at different wavelengths of light. The data can be any type of network traffic including multimedia services, mobile applications, social media, VoIP, and cloud computing.
To transmit data, an optical transport network includes a set of Optical Network Elements (ONE) connected by optical fiber links, able to provide functionality of transport, multiplexing, switching, management, supervision and survivability of optical channels carrying client signals. Each ONE may re-time, re-amplify, or re-shape photonic light signals from the optical fiber links.
OTN wraps payloads from various clients into a container for transport across optical networks, preserving the clients' native structure, timing information, and management information. The enhanced multiplexing capability of OTN allows different traffic types—including Ethernet, storage, and digital video, as well as SONET/SDH—to be carried over a single Optical Transport Unit frame. These OTN networks comprise both backbone transmission and can extend into data centers and directly to homes and businesses. Data centers are facilities where the equipment is located and can include Central Offices.
Because of increasing demand for network services, bandwidth requirements for transport networks have been increasing. Accordingly, cloud service providers, content providers, and traditional competitive communications service providers are demanding that new networks, such as networks at their data centers and between data centers, be implemented more quickly. Moreover, equipment manufacturers are developing new higher bandwidth products more quickly. This means OTN network operators products are replacing existing ONEs more quickly.
Installing a new network traditionally involves assembling the fibers and optical network elements on-site, perhaps at a data center. The traditional process for deploying a new transport network has long project timelines, taking as long as 12 months, and draws heavily upon scarce internal optical engineering resources. The resulting network also may have inconsistent quality, because the fibers may not be of ideal length and the assembly may not take place in a clean room environment resulting in particulates interfering with light levels.
Monitoring optical transport networks tends to be reactive in nature. Only when a loss of data or noticeable decrease in bandwidth is detected does an operator dig in to try to diagnose a problem. For example, optical transport networks may fail when a kink or break occurs in the fiber, or when an ONE fails. When a problem does occur, tracking down and isolating the source of the problem can be a long and labor-intensive process involving a human operator testing many pieces of equipment individually.
Improved methods for deploying, proactively and reactively monitoring, and troubleshooting optical physical layer networks are needed.